Her Good Name

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Is there someone else we can talk to about this?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m sorry, Guardman does all our—”

  “Forget Guardman,” Chrissy said. “I’m buying from you.”

  The woman’s voice was getting tighter. “But it’s Guardman that does the financing, and they rate your risk level as fair.”

  Risk level? They made her sound like a terrorist.

  They all went quiet and looked at one another while Chrissy tried to keep her evil thoughts to herself.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” the woman said awkwardly. “This is the only credit we can offer, and I’ll need a hundred dollar deposit before we finalize the sale.”

  “A deposit!” Chrissy repeated.

  Amanda grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the store. Chrissy tried to argue but finally gave up. She wasn’t the one dying for a dishwasher in the first place.

  “Okay, that was really weird,” Amanda said once they pushed through the front doors. She gave Chrissy a look of reprimand. “And I don’t just mean you going nuts on that woman.”

  “I’m under a lot of stress,” Chrissy said tightly. They walked the rest of the way to Amanda’s car in silence.

  “So what was that all about? Are you no longer the meticulous saver-girl?”

  Chrissy looked at her friend. “If I weren’t the meticulous saver-girl then I’d have nothing to freak out about, would I? That lady, or Guardman, or somebody is off their rocker. I have no debt other than my house. I don’t know what she’s talking about.” She crossed her arms over her chest and muttered under her breath, “Fair.”

  They drove in silence for a few moments as Amanda navigated out of the parking lot. “Um, have you checked your credit rating lately?” Amanda asked.

  Chrissy shook her head. “I don’t need to check my credit rating because I don’t have any debt and I know my rating is excellent.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Chrissy looked at her. “Hmmm, what?”

  “Well, I mean, maybe I’m overreacting but Micah—you remember him, right?”

  Chrissy started shaking her head, then she made the connection. “Boise State baseball cap guy?”

  “Yeah, the one you ditched out on.”

  “I didn’t ditch him.”

  Amanda waved that off. “Anyway, I guess he had his identity stolen awhile back and a couple weeks ago he did a mutual night activity for the young men on what credit is, how to use it, and how to make sure it doesn’t get messed with. He’s a loan officer, ya know, and he has software that allows him to run credit reports. He actually ran reports for a couple of the boys and one of the kids had some hospital bill on his record. Turned out it belonged to his uncle who has the same name. Cam got all fired up about it and ordered credit reports on us and all the kids.”

  “Was everything okay?”

  “Well, yeah,” Amanda said as if that weren’t the point. “But all kinds of things can happen without you even knowing about it. Micah said the first indication is usually receiving a bill you don’t recognize or trying to get credit and finding out something isn’t right.”

  Chrissy thought back over the situation at the appliance store. She felt a tingle go through her as she considered the ramifications of something not being right. Fair credit when she knew it was excellent. “So, you think I need to get a credit report?”

  Amanda shrugged. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea. I can call Micah for you.”

  Chrissy instantly rebelled. “No way,” she said. “He already thinks I’m a lunatic. I’m not going to ask him for a credit report. Aren’t there free ones you can get online?”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said, sounding just a teensy bit disappointed.

  Chrissy knew that not going to Micah’s went against every bit of Amanda’s matchmaking sensibilities. In Amanda’s book of fairy tales, single man plus single woman plus common purpose equaled destiny.

  “We could go to my house and use my computer,” Amanda offered, “but Cam might tie me up and not let me leave again.”

  “At least we got lunch first.”

  Amanda laughed. “Or we could use your computer—it should only take about two hours to get onto the web site.”

  “Don’t dis my dial-up!” Chrissy said. “What about the library?”

  “Or Micah’s, where you don’t have to sign up, wait in line, or deal with the germs two hundred people have left behind on the keyboard.”

  Chrissy groaned. “Give it up,” she said. “I’m not going.”

  Just then Amanda pulled up to a house Chrissy didn’t recognize and she realized her derelict of duty in not paying attention to where they were going. Amanda flashed an innocent smile. “Oh look, we’re here and he’s home. What luck!”

  Chapter 28

  They were still arguing when Micah opened the door, looking adequately surprised to see them there. He held Chrissy’s eyes just like he had at the restaurant all those months ago, but this time it made her uncomfortable and she looked away. She was so going to toilet paper Amanda’s house for this.

  “Hi, Micah,” Amanda said before launching into a highly summarized account of what they were doing there. When she finished, she flashed that same innocent smile and waited for a response.

  Micah pushed open the door. “Sure, I can get you a credit report.”

  Amanda looked at Chrissy with an isn’t-that-great expression and led the way, leaving Chrissy to follow, silent and humiliated.

  “Um, do you want to come back to my office?” he asked.

  Amanda said they did and Chrissy continued to be obedient, scanning the living room as they passed through. It was big, a good size for a home this old, but it was boring—white walls, brown carpet, mismatched furniture. Piles of tools and other building supplies were stacked along the far wall and in most of the corners. Smack dab in the middle of the room was a couch, loveseat, and recliner, all at right angles to one another so they formed a small horseshoe. There was also a TV in an entertainment center and a workout bench, with dumbbells littered on the ground around it. It was exactly what she’d expect the living room of a single man with nice arms to look like.

  At some point the mantel around the fireplace had been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole. During their poor excuse for a date he’d said he was fixing his house up, but it didn’t look as if he’d made much progress. At least, until she got to the study.

  She stopped abruptly in the doorway and looked at what she assumed had once been a bedroom. However, it looked nothing like a bedroom now. The lower-third of the walls were covered in a walnut wainscoting that matched the desk and the built-in shelves that ran the length of one side. The walls were textured and then glazed, a technique she’d seen but hadn’t dared attempt. She couldn’t help but reach out and touch it. The floor was hardwood, with a huge rug that covered most of the floor space. In the middle of the room was a large desk with several chairs.

  “Wow,” she said, pulled out of her worries enough to admire the room. “This is amazing.”

  “He did it himself,” Amanda said, scanning the room. “But I haven’t seen it since right after the paint.” She looked at Micah. “Well done.”

  Micah looked around as well, as if he hadn’t taken the time to stop and look at his work lately. “Thanks,” he eventually said.

  “You did all this yourself?” Chrissy asked, stepping to the wall where a collage of walnut frames formed a pattern for black-and-white pictures of who she assumed were his kids.

  “Yeah,” Micah said. “It took me almost a year of evenings and weekends.”

  “I can believe it,” Chrissy said. “I claim to be fixing up my house too, but few of my projects take more than forty-eight hours. I don’t have the attention span.”

  Micah smiled when she looked at him. Amanda smiled too and Chrissy looked away. Would it be beyond Amanda to orchestrate an entire false credit scare just to get Chrissy to see Micah again?

  They lapsed into silence as Chrissy studied the pic
tures on his wall. There was one of him as a younger man, with three little faces wedged up against him. They were all in coats and hats, perhaps on a ski trip. It was a beautiful photo. Due to her fragile emotional state it made her eyes water. It had only been a few hours, but she missed the kids so much. Maybe she should put up a picture collage like this. Would it make it easier to have them gone, or harder to have more reminders? As if she would ever forget.

  “So,” Micah said, abruptly turning her thoughts away from the kids. “You need a credit report?”

  “Um, yeah,” Chrissy said as he pulled out his office chair and sat down. Chrissy and Amanda took their seats in the two Queen Anne chairs across from the desk. “I tried to buy a dishwasher and they said my credit was rated fair, which isn’t right.”

  Micah held her eyes and nodded, then turned to his computer and started typing. “I need your Social Security number and your date of birth.”

  She gave him the information and crossed one leg over the other. The black spool-heeled sandal of her top foot slid off so that it was only held on by her toes, and she let it dangle there. After several seconds, she looked up to find Micah staring at her legs. He saw her watching him and blushed before going back to his typing. His attention caused a shiver to run through her, and she put both feet on the floor. Amanda watched the exchange and smiled like the Cheshire cat. Her absolute enjoyment of this made Chrissy want to be difficult, but she resisted.

  Micah’s eyebrows came together, but his eyes were drawn to the screen.

  “Do you know what your credit score was, uh, I mean is?”

  “I think the last time I knew was when I bought my house. That was about three and a half years ago.”

  “And . . .” His voice was tense now, like he was in a hurry for her answer.

  “It was 730-something—the mortgage officer said it was really good. I’ve paid off my car since then and never been late on a mortgage payment. I don’t have any other debt.” She rose from her chair and leaned forward in an attempt to see whatever was on the screen that had him so concerned. “Why?”

  Micah met her eyes and looked very serious. Amanda stood up too, her eyebrows pinched and her expression reflecting Chrissy’s own worry. “Maybe you’d better sit back down.”

  Chapter 29

  Chrissy pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead and hoped it would somehow help her refocus her thoughts. She took another deep breath and looked at the papers in front of her again. Micah had printed out the report so she could look at it. The proof was absolutely necessary. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  “So all this debt has my name on it?” she asked, trying to make sense of what he’d been explaining to her, yet really, really hoping he was somehow wrong.

  “Whoever did this has your Social Security number and has, in some ways, become you. I’m so sorry.” It was about the thirteenth time he’d apologized. It would be annoying if it weren’t so sincere.

  Amanda opened her mouth as if she were going to apologize too, but then she closed it. She looked as stricken as Chrissy felt.

  “Ninety thousand dollars,” Chrissy said out loud, echoing the calculations Micah had done as he read off the amassed debts. She forced a laugh, trying to pretend it was all a joke. Micah didn’t smile. “This can’t be real.” Micah said nothing and she pulled the papers back to her again. “A car? A second mortgage on my house? How is this possible?”

  “To most businesses, you are only a number, a birth date, and an address. Your ijacker apparently got those numbers.”

  “Ijacker?” Amanda asked.

  “Another name for an identity thief—it’s the fastest growing crime in America, not that it makes you feel better to have so much company.”

  “Is this what happened to you?” Amanda asked, leaning over to look at the credit report herself.

  “Not quite,” Micah said, waving his hand to indicate the eight pages of information lying on the desk between them. “I had a few cards and a motorcycle in my name, and they maxed out my existing credit card. The total amount was a lot smaller than yours, but they did use both existing accounts in my name and made new ones. You haven’t noticed anything funny with your bank accounts, have you?”

  Chrissy shook her head. “No, I took some money out last week and everything looked fine.” Her head began to buzz.

  “Well, that’s good,” Micah said. “But if I were you, I’d clear your accounts, at least for a while. Existing credit is a lot harder for people to tap into, but you never know—they got to mine somehow.”

  “I feel so . . . stupid,” Chrissy finally said. “What kind of idiot doesn’t realize this is happening?” She looked up and met his eyes, only then realizing he was the same kind of idiot. “Sorry.”

  Micah shrugged it off. “How would you know this was going on?” He looked between the two women. “Unless one of these creditors knows how to contact you—the real you—or until you go in for credit, there’s really no way for you to know other than checking your credit report often, which most people don’t bother with. And talk about shoulda known, I deal with this all the time with my clients. The first year I was doing loans, I wrote up a three hundred thousand dollar loan for a guy who’d been dead two years.”

  “Really?” Amanda said.

  “I never met the guy in person, just did everything over the computer, fax, and phone. Turned out he was the dead man’s son, but his credit was shot so he thought he’d borrow what his dad didn’t need anymore. Luckily the title company caught on when he came in to sign the paperwork. Hard to pass for a fifty-two-year-old when you’re twenty-seven.”

  “At least he didn’t get the loan,” Chrissy said. “Whatever doofus financed this one—no offense—let it go through.”

  “It’s at twenty-one percent, so it’s likely a no-doc loan done online. But the ijacker must have a lot of info about you, and your house, to get it to go through. Looks like they got it right before the mortgage laws tightened up.” He shook his head. “Perfect timing.”

  Impossible, Chrissy thought as she tried to collect herself and make a plan. “So, okay, what do I do now? Who do I call to fix it?”

  Micah shook his head slowly and waved toward the computer. “Well, I just sent notices to the three credit bureaus to put an alert on your credit. That will hopefully keep new credit from being opened. But I’ve been working on my stuff for more than ten weeks, and I’m just starting to get results. Even after the credit alerts were on my account, another card was opened up. I was lucky to have found out within a couple of weeks of the accounts being opened. Yours has been active for months.”

  Chrissy let her eyes drop shut. This was so ludicrous.

  Micah leaned forward. “The thing is, all these people and all these creditors—they think this is you. Somehow you have to prove it isn’t.”

  “But that’s not fair,” Chrissy said, the emotion breaking through. She opened her eyes again, focusing on his eyes that reflected so much sympathy and determination. Their weird first date and the awkward meeting this afternoon no longer mattered. He understood what was happening. He’d been there, and he could help her. “I don’t know what to do next,” she whispered.

  He opened a drawer and pulled out a notebook, sliding it toward her. Then he plucked a pen from the container on his desk and held it out to her. “You’ll want to take notes, and prepare yourself. This is going to dominate your life for awhile.”

  “Well,” Chrissy said. “At least I’ll have plenty to keep my mind off the kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “Never mind,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken out loud. She took the pen and drew in a deep breath. Amanda reached over and squeezed her arm, offering her support. It gave her strength to know she wasn’t facing this completely alone.

  She could do this; it could be fixed. She just needed to be centered. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 30

  Micah’s son came home at 4:00
and left again at 4:30. It was almost 5:30 before Amanda said she needed to call Cam. Chrissy stood up when Amanda left the room.

  “We should probably go,” she said, realizing they had been there for more than two hours. Her hand was cramped from so much writing and she had several pages of notes to further overwhelm her once she got home. With Micah’s help, they had gone through and sent e-mail notices to each of the fraudulent creditors. Her head was still swimming.

  “You’ll need to follow-up with them,” Micah said. She started to rip out the pages from the notebook, but he put up a hand. “You can keep that.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Chrissy said. She stared at the words on the pages. “I . . . I can’t thank you enough for your help. I don’t

  know how I’d have learned this stuff any other way.” In addi-

  tion to sending the fraud notices, he’d also helped her log

  onto her bank account. Everything looked fine there—thank goodness.

  Micah stood up. “I’m glad I could help, but, wow, I’m really sorry. I’ve run into things like this with some of my loans, and when it happened to me it was awful, but for you, they pulled out all the stops. These guys are real professionals.”

  “Even better news,” Chrissy mumbled, tucking her hair behind her ears and stepping back into her shoes—elevating her height in the process. Her identity thief was a professional, cream of the crop, top of his class.

  “You’ll want to get a police report as soon as you can,” Micah continued, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “Right,” Chrissy said, not wanting to hear one more thing.

  He led her to the living room, where Amanda was finishing up her phone call.

  “If there’s anything I can do, ya know, to help or anything. Just let me know.”

  She turned to face him and regarded him for a moment. “Really?” she asked. Even amid all this mess, their first date wasn’t far from her mind. “I . . .” She looked down, not sure what to say or how to say it. She cleared her throat, not quite able to push the last few hours from her mind enough to change the subject. She looked up and met his eyes again. “You’re a good man to help me like this. I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve it.”